


caught up in your details

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: Morphology [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Biting, Blow Jobs, Complicated Relationships, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, Love Bites, M/M, No cheating, Pre-Poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: On a Friday, Zack discovers that, while Ryan may be incredibly hot when he’s pissed off, he's absolutelygorgeouswhen he's coming down from an orgasm.On a Tuesday, a week and a half later, he discovers that Ryan somehow looks even more gorgeous when he's being pressed up against a wall and kissed senseless.(The problem is that Zack isn't the one kissing him.)





	caught up in your details

**Author's Note:**

> so I was already planning on writing some kind of fic from Zack's POV to bridge the first part of the series with the full-on Ryan/Shane/Zack shenanigans, but then Ella left the following comment on part 1: 
> 
> _ryan wanting to leave a mark that he can see in their next class together (!!!) [which now of course im thinking, 'what if he can't and attacks zack with his mouth after class?' ◅～(♡ヮ♡)Ψ_
> 
> and lo and behold, now we have this! 
> 
> title from [T-Shirt Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXjCcC7e1fk) by Don Broco.

Zack’s fairly certain that he’s never been this excited to head to class on a Friday morning.

It’s not the class itself that he’s actually looking forward to; sure, Introductory Film Studies is pretty interesting on a typical day, and he’s pretty sure they’re supposed to be discussing the history of the horror genre, which is bound to be cool, but still. On this particular day, he has a feeling that he won’t be paying much attention.

He suspects that he’ll be too busy watching how the plan he’s been concocting over the last two days unfolds.

Before he leaves his dorm, he stops in the communal bathroom on his floor and gives himself a quick look over in the mirror. Most of the marks Ryan left along his neck earlier in the week have already faded in their entirety, but the one just above his collar, where Ryan had full-on bitten him like he had a point to prove, is still visible. It’s transitioned from an angry red to a faint yellow, but it’s still unmistakably a bite mark. He’s spent the last few days strategically hiding it, but today, he tugs the collar of his shirt to the side so that it’s clearly visible, practically begging to be looked at. 

Once he’s happy with how the mark is framed, he brushes a fleck of lint off the front of his shirt and glances down at the bottom. Thankfully, all the stains came out of it in the wash. The dark maroon color has faded slightly (not a surprise – he’s pretty sure that the school saves all their high-quality swag for the actual varsity teams), but the white lettering on the sleeve still clearly reads _Captain_. Chances are that he’s probably going to get chirped by _someone_ for actually, unironically wearing the shirt around campus, but it, in tandem with the carefully framing of the bite mark, is an integral part of his plan.

Technically, he supposes that it’s not so much a plan. A plan would imply that he has some kind of concrete goal in mind, a particular outcome that he wants to achieve, which isn’t strictly true.

Just like when he’d kissed Ryan in the locker room, it’s more of an idea. He doesn’t have a set endgame. Mainly, he just wants to see what will happen.

He grabs coffee from the dining hall, jogs across campus, and makes it to class five minutes before it starts. Per usual, Ryan is already there; Zack doesn’t think he’s ever seen him late to something, whether it was a class or a practice or a game. He’s sitting in the second row from the front on the left side of the room, laptop already open, texting on his phone. Normally, Zack tends to gravitate towards the back of the room, but for the purposes of his plan (or idea, or whatever it is), that won’t work, so he walks down the stairs that divide the room in half, all the way to the bottom, and drops into the seat immediately in front of Ryan. Once he’s gotten his own laptop out, he twists around to hang his bag from the back of his chair and idly glances up and back.

Ryan is staring down at him with his thumbs hovering in mid-air, frozen in the middle of a text. His lips are slightly parted, like he’s trying to decide whether or not he wants to say something.

Deliberately, Zack rubs at the side of the neck, right over the mark left by Ryan’s teeth.

“Hey,” he says. He wants to keep watching, wants to see how or if Ryan’s expression changes, but that would be slightly too obvious, so he reluctantly turns back around, just in time to hear Ryan mutter something that sounds suspiciously like _you fucking dick._

Zack grins and boots up his laptop.

The lecture turns out to be really interesting, and he manages to take fairly detailed notes, which is surprising, because he can feel Ryan’s gaze burning into the nape of his neck for the entire time. He doesn’t turn back around, not once, not even when he rubs at the side of his neck (unconsciously, this time) and hears Ryan whisper _fuck you_. 

Sure, he could just be saying it to his laptop, but Zack suspects not. 

Once class finishes, Zack takes his time packing up his things, and he stands up just in time to see Ryan stomp out of the room. By the time he exits out into the hallway, Ryan’s already out of sight. 

Zack thinks that means that he's won this round. 

He heads back across campus to his dorm to drop his stuff off; he doesn’t have another class for four hours, and there’s supposed to be a pick-up game starting at eleven over in the athletics complex that he wants to hit up. He changes into a pair of basketball shorts and is in the midst of packing his gym bag when someone pounds on his door hard enough for it to rattle in the frame. He doesn’t bother to glance through the peephole before he unlocks it, and when he swings it open, Ryan is standing there, face flush with color, nostrils flared, positively _fuming_.

It appears that, maybe, his plan worked even better than he thought.

“How’d you find my room?” he asks out of curiosity; he’s pretty sure he’s never told Ryan which dorm he lived in, let alone which room was his, although they do have mutual friends that he could have hit up for the information. 

“Does it matter?” Ryan retorts. Without waiting for an answer, he pushes past Zack into his room and drops his bag to the floor with a thud. Zack closes and locks the door (just in case someone decides to stop by unexpectedly) and turns around just in time for Ryan to crash against his front and yank him down into a bruising kiss. One of his hands slides up Zack’s chest to his neck, and he digs his thumb _hard_ into the mark he left behind earlier in the week, like he’s trying to make it a permanent fixture of Zack’s skin. Zack decides to take advantage of Ryan’s momentary distraction; his back was sore for a solid hour after he left the other night, from Ryan shoving him back against the locker so persistently.

Time to return the favor.

Grabbing Ryan’s arms, he spins them around and pushes Ryan back against the door, hard enough to make it rattle again, before he surges back down and drags his tongue along the line of Ryan’s stupidly sharp teeth. Ryan keeps his thumb pressed into the bite mark and fists his other hand in the back of Zack’s shirt, bunches up all of the loose fabric between his fingers like he’s trying to rip it apart.

Frankly, Zack wouldn’t be surprised if that was _exactly_ what Ryan was trying to do. The guy really _is_ a sore loser.

Zack only backs away when his lungs start to ache for more air than the tiny breaths he’s been taking every time their mouths slot into a new position has been able to provide. He stays close, tugs on Ryan’s bottom lip with his teeth as he uses his whole body to keep him pinned back against the door.

“I have another class in an hour,” Ryan says, hooking his fingers into the collar of Zack’s shirt and tugging, like he’s trying to stretch it out of shape. Before he can fully wreck the fucking thing, Zack yanks it over his head and tosses it off to the side, towards his desk.

“And what do you expect me to do with that fact?” he asks. He’s not being flippant, not entirely; he really doesn’t know what Ryan wants with him, what the acceptable terms of this encounter are. 

Unfortunately, Ryan doesn’t really clear anything up for him.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he answers before he plants both hands on Zack’s chest and pushes him backwards. Zack trips over his half-packed gym bag and lands heavily on the edge of his narrow mattress, and Ryan follows after him, pushes at his shoulders until he’s flat on his back, head resting on his pillow. Once he’s gotten himself situated, Zack grabs Ryan by the front of his shirt and hauls him up, splays his legs apart so that Ryan can better fit between them. When he leans up for another kiss, Ryan pulls back an inch, like he’s teasing a dog, the barest hint of a smirk playing on his swollen mouth.

“What’s got you so eager?” he asks. He’s slightly out of breath, and his eyes are on Zack’s mouth, and the whole image goes straight to Zack’s dick. He tries his best to keep his cool, rolls his eyes and forces himself not to press his hips up into Ryan’s.

“If you're so worried about making it to your next class on time, maybe you should shut the hell up,” he answers, wrapping his hand around the back of Ryan’s neck and leaning up so that he can try again. Thankfully, this time, Ryan doesn’t pull away; he returns the kiss and presses Zack down into the mattress. 

Ryan’s mouth doesn’t stay on his for long. The next time they separate to breathe, it starts tracing the line of Zack’s jawbone, presses a series of firm kisses all the way to the hinge, right below his ear. Zack tilts his head back into the pillow and tries to regulate his breathing, tightens his hold on the back of Ryan’s neck and groans when Ryan brushes over a particularly sensitive spot. From his jaw, Ryan trails down the side of his neck, over his pulse point, lingers there for a few moments that have Zack curling his free hand into his sheets and tossing more groans towards the ceiling. From there, he moves further, until he’s at the base of Zack’s neck, breath brushing over his handiwork from earlier in the week. He pulls back a little, far enough for Zack to actually be able to look at his face, and presses his thumb into the old mark again, softer this time.

“I really thought this would be a lot more visible,” he says, eyes flicking up to meet Zack’s. Zack swallows heavily, feeling momentarily lightheaded from the implications of Ryan’s comment.

It sounds like he wasn’t the only one that left the locker room the other day with some kind of idea, some kind of possible plan for the future. 

“Maybe you should try again,” he replies, twisting his head to the side so that his neck is fully at Ryan’s mercy. When he swallows again, Ryan groans and presses a soft, almost tender kiss to the side of his throat.

“Yeah.” Under his breath, so quiet that Zack wonders if he’s supposed to hear it at all, Ryan adds, “Gonna have to do better this time.”

That’s all the warning Zack has before Ryan sets about marking him up again. 

He’s nothing less than thorough about it. As soon as he’s done in one spot, he immediately moves onto another, leaving behind a throbbing bruise that definitely isn’t going to be fading within the next twenty-four hours

“Jesus Christ,” Zack groans when Ryan leans down and scrapes his teeth along the line of his collarbone. His free hand, the one that isn’t alternating between gripping Ryan’s hair and curving around the back of his neck, is tucked into the back pocket of Ryan’s jeans, and he’s able to use the leverage it provides to roll his hips up against Ryan’s. If they were both in jeans, the friction would be too much, too rough, but the thin fabric of his basketball shorts doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination, and between the steady press of Ryan’s hips against his and the relentless way his mouth just keeps marking Zack up, it feels like his head might actually explode.

He can safely say that this was _not_ something he foresaw happening when he came up with his plan. 

“Put your head back,” Ryan unexpectedly demands, voice slightly hoarse. Zack’s stomach flips as he turns his head away from his pillow, so that he’s looking up at the ceiling, and tilts it back. He doesn’t know what Ryan’s about to do to him, where he could mark him that he hasn’t already done so. 

He’s a little apprehensive, but mainly, he’s curious and really fucking turned on.

He has maybe five seconds to mentally prepare himself, but he’s pretty sure that not even five hours would be sufficient enough time to prepare himself for Ryan simultaneously fitting his mouth to the hollow at the base of Zack’s throat, sliding his hand down into his shorts and wrapping his fingers around Zack’s dick.

The fact that he doesn’t come _immediately_ is a minor miracle, but he only lasts for as long as it takes Ryan to fully suck a bruise into his throat.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he opens them again, comes back to himself, it’s just in time to see Ryan wiping his hand off on the front of Zack’s shorts. Abruptly, a blazing hot wave of absolute mortification lights his face on fire. He feels like he’s fifteen all over again. 

But when he forces himself to glance up at Ryan’s face, there’s no amusement there, no sign that he’s going to laugh at him. Instead, he’s just staring down at him with wide eyes, mouth slack and slick with saliva. He carefully brushes one thumb over the throbbing bruise at the base of Zack’s throat, and an involuntary shudder courses down Zack’s spine.

“So that’s a thing for you,” he says, almost thoughtfully, as he circles the spot with his thumb. He’s shifted slightly, and when he rolls his hips down, his cock presses into the top of Zack’s thigh. 

“Apparently,” Zack laughs, a little breathlessly, before he wraps his hands around Ryan’s waist and leans up. His bed is so narrow that it takes them a few moments to flip over, but eventually, he ends up hovering over top of Ryan, wincing when his shorts stick to his skin.

Looks like he’s going to be doing laundry _again_.

“There’s something I want to do,” he says, glancing down at where Ryan is very clearly hard. It’s something he’s thought about a few times, mainly when he went to watch Ryan’s team practice and got a little too distracted by watching Ryan himself. In all of those idle daydreams, the venue was never his dorm room, but now that the opportunity is in front of him, it seems like a shame to let it pass by.

“Can you get it done in the next twenty minutes?” There’s a hint of challenge in Ryan’s voice. The tone is all too familiar to Zack from all the times they squared off against each other on the court, and it’s enough to make his dick twitch again.

As he settles one hand on Ryan’s buckle, he can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since Ryan has had to actually _wait_ for something, since he’s had to deal with not having someone wrapped around his finger.

He wonders how long he could make Ryan wait for it before he got well and truly frustrated.

But now is not the time to find out. Instead, he slides down the bed, ducks his head and presses his mouth to Ryan’s dick through his jeans as he pops his belt open. Ryan’s breath stutters from his chest, and he drops one hand into Zack’s hair, pushes it back away from his face.

“Yeah,” he belatedly answers, drawing down Ryan’s zipper. He keeps his eyes locked on Ryan’s face as he reaches into the slit of his boxers. “Pretty sure I can.”

He turns out to be right. It doesn’t take Ryan long at all to come down his throat with one hand anchored in his hair and the other reaching back to grip his headboard. Once he’s swallowed it all, Zack leans back on his knees, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and just watches Ryan for a few moments. His chest is heaving, and his cheeks are vividly red, like he just played a full quarter. It takes him a few seconds to open his eyes again, and when he does, he blinks lazily a few times as his mouth curves into an actual, genuine smile.

Ryan may be incredibly hot when he’s pissed off, but Zack doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look so gorgeous.

Unfortunately, the smile doesn’t last long. After he blinks a few more times, Ryan sighs, sits up and zips himself up, and Zack gets off the bed and pulls his shirt back on. Thankfully, his shorts are dark enough that he thinks he’ll be able to get away with walking to the bathroom to clean up and change without anyone noticing.

As he reaches down to grab the jeans that he wore to class this morning off the floor, a thought occurs to him. He’s pretty sure that it’s a weird time to bring it up, but it’s not like they actually hang out, not like he can just text Ryan about it; if he doesn’t bring it up now, there probably won’t be a better time. 

When he’d told Ryan in the locker room that he was pretty sure Shane would say yes if Ryan actually just fucking asked him out, he hadn’t been lying, and he hadn’t just been assuming Shane would say yes because of Ryan being... well, Ryan. He’d actually overheard Shane say it (or, well, say something to that effect) at a party a few weeks ago, just so happened to catch Shane practically waxing poetic about Ryan’s smile and his arms and his full-body laugh. 

He supposes that, technically, he could just tell Ryan what he overheard, but he’s curious to know whether or not Ryan believed him at face value.

“Did you ask that Shane guy out yet?” he asks. Ryan’s still flushed face immediately reddens further.

“I have to get to class,” he mutters, swinging his bag off the floor. Once it’s on his back, he glances in Zack’s direction, but his eyes are fixed on his chest, not his face. “That shirt is hideous, by the way.”

Zack just shrugs and glances down at it. It’s probably going to end up buried in the bottom of his drawer a week from now, but he’s not going to give Ryan the pleasure of knowing that. “Yeah, well, I earned it.”

“Like fuck you did,” Ryan responds as he unlocks and opens the door. “See you around, Zack.” Once he’s gone, Zack stalls for a few minutes, just to make sure he’s really gone, before he gathers everything he needs for the shower and heads off to the bathroom.

Before he actually cleans up, he takes a glance at himself in the mirror and is not surprised to discover that it looks like he got in a prizefight with a vampire and lost. His neck and collarbones are dotted with rapidly purpling marks, and he wonders just how many of them will still visible when he sees Ryan again on Tuesday for class.

He’s willing to bet a few.

&.

There are no less than eight separate marks still visible on his neck come Tuesday, but he doesn’t get a chance to see how Ryan reacts to them because on Monday night, their professor sends out an email saying that he’s come down with something and is canceling both their Tuesday and Friday classes.

He doesn’t see Ryan for the entirety of the week, doesn’t run into him at the gym or at either of the parties he hits up on the weekend, doesn’t even get a glimpse of him in a hallway or at the dining hall.

He doesn't see him again until the next Tuesday, when he walks around the corner into the corridor leading to their lecture hall.

Ryan isn’t alone.

Shane is pressing him up against the wall between the water fountain and the door to their lecture hall, ridiculously long fingers threaded into Ryan’s short hair. Even though Ryan is craning up on his toes, Shane still has to stoop to kiss him, and it looks like his glasses are going to fall to the floor if he isn’t careful. Shane’s hair is thoroughly disheveled, and Ryan’s shirt is rucked up just far enough to expose the strip of skin between his navel and the waistband of his jeans.

Zack is suddenly, acutely aware that he knows what that strip of skin feels like underneath his mouth. 

By the time he realizes that he’s staring, the two of them have stopped making out, but they’re still thoroughly wrapped up in each other. Ryan reaches up and pushes Shane’s glasses up his nose and is met with an absolutely beaming grin. Zack’s too far away to hear what Shane says in response, but Ryan smiles and leans up for another lingering kiss. That’s followed up by one last peck before Shane ambles away, head and shoulders above most everyone else in the hallway.

Ryan doesn’t move. He stays leaning against the wall, thumbing at his phone, until Zack walks up beside him. He doesn’t plan on saying anything to him, but before he can walk by with no acknowledgment, Ryan clears his throat. 

“You were right,” he says, putting his phone away and following Zack into the room. “He said yes.”

Normally, Zack enjoys telling people _told you so_ , enjoys being in the right. He suspects that, if Ryan hadn’t shown up at his dorm room last Friday, he would have been able to say exactly that without his stomach souring.

But rather than feeling triumphant, he can’t help but feel like he just lost a competition he didn’t know he was taking part of.

He barely manages to spit out, “Yeah, congrats, man,” before he ducks into the third row from the back, leaving Ryan to continue to his normal spot at the front of the room. Zack forces himself to look away from Ryan’s back and opens his laptop instead, brings up a muted stream of the first basketball game he can find so that he has something else to focus on when he isn’t taking notes.

When he rubs at his neck, not a single mark throbs. Every last one of them has faded away.

Even though trying to cover them up had been incredibly fucking inconvenient, even though trying to sleep that first night with all of them throbbing was a pain in the ass, he wishes that they were still lingering on his skin. 

Maybe, he thinks as he takes one last glance at the back of Ryan's head before he fully turns his attention to his laptop, he should have asked for more when he had the chance.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
